WILDLIFE SMUGGLING THROUGH KIA:Maige, Mwinyi &#8211; just be courageous and resign

BY HILAL K.SUED

Scandals hitting the nation are taking its toll &#8211; not as one would expect to see heads rolling &#8211; but on both the credibility and decorum of the establishment.

Edmund Burke, the 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century Anglo-Irish political theorist once defined a scandal as an event that has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

For officials, the speaking part is even harder, and when they do, one is left wondering why they were hired to the job, despite suspect credentials.

For example, some of the things that take place in this country suggest the absence of a functioning government. But since the Government is largely an abstract creature, then upright people directing it have either gone AWOL, or those still hanging around are of the said dubious qualifications.

I could not fathom, for instance, that the Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda could be unaware that some ministers are not housed; they stay in hotels at great cost to the nation. But in this country who cares? He doesn't give a damn even when people's representatives shed tears over huge allowances they get from taxpayers. Instead he tells Tanzanians that the extravagance is in accordance to law and regulations. Indeed? Why didn't he also add that it would be sinful to change that law, or whatever?

Pinda is not the only leader in the JK administration who does not know what goes under him. Last week Ezekiel Maige, the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism flew in rage &#8211; or pretended to do so &#8211; at certain officials in his ministry who he said were trying to shield some people involved in the wildlife smuggling scam that took place at Kilimanjaro International Airport last November.

The mere fact that the minister appears to be angry now &#8211; six months after the commission of the crime is laughable, if not pitiful, especially when the scam was revealed not by him, but a newspaper.

For over half a year, Maige was dead to the world, for even a whiff of the elaborate deal that involved scores of officials escaped his nostrils. If one believes this trash, then one should also believe the eastern skies will be host to the next sunset.

In any language, the incident that involved a foreign military aircraft that not only illegally entered our airspace, but also illegally landed on our airport and illegally flew away with an illicit cargo &#8211; live animals, is a scandal.

And wonders of all wonders &#8211; both Maige, and his colleague in the Defence Ministry, Hussein Mwinyi are still in their jobs! They are there because a very bizarre definition of &#8216;scandal' was allowed to develop in this country and firmly took roots.

Basically, a scandal is a widely publicized incident that involves allegations of wrongdoing, disgrace, or moral outrage that may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both.

And it is only the public scandal that offends, for to sin in secret is no sin at all. There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out.

Some scandals are broken by whistleblowers &#8211; such as the one in question and first revealed by a Kiswahili weekly. Another one was the EPA Scandal that involved rip-offs of billions of shillings from the BoT's EPA.

While, admittedly, falsely alleged scandals can lead to witch-hunts against the innocent, an attempt to cover up a scandal can ignite a greater scandal when such cover-up is exposed and fails, as what happened in the Watergate Scandal in the US in early 70s that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

In the EPA Scandal, there were initial attempts by government officials to cover it up. But since, contrary to official bragging, the country's governance system does not adhere to openness, rule of law and accountability, it did not provoke any serious ramifications &#8211; including, say, principled resignations of officials concerned.

[A principled resignation is the one tendered swiftly after a scandal becomes public knowledge.]

As usual, calls for top public officials to resign over the wildlife theft scam are being heard, loud and clear. The singled out officials are the two ministers even though those who are blowing the trumpets know very well that these are just calls from the wilderness. Our top officials and politicians do not have a culture of principled resignation.

Unfortunately there are also some people in our midst who also question the justification for a top public official to resign from a scandal that has hit the area under his charge, saying such a person could not be directly involved in the scandal itself.

When MV Bukoba sank in Lake Victoria in 1996 drowning over nearly 1,000 people, there were calls for the then Transport Minister, William Kusila, and the TRC boss, Limford Mboma to resign. (The ill-fated ship was operated by TRC's Marine Department).

They refused to resign and some people sided with them, wondering why the duo should have resigned, since they were not, in any way in or near the ship when disaster struck &#8211; in other words they could not possibly be tied to any blame. Such skewered thinking is just unfortunate, but explains a lot on the country's current predicament.

The Natural Resources and Tourism ministry is among the country's most scandalous. For a very long time it has been characterized by mal-practices whereas a lot of wealth derived from massive riches the country has is swindled by some few dishonest individuals within the ministry, and their associates.

Since the time Ms Zakia Meghji headed the ministry we never stopped hearing reports of resource mismanagement, particularly illegal exportation of logs. Her successor, Anthony Diallo failed to stop the practice which the Government banned since 2004 when Ms Meghji headed the ministry.

His successor, Shamsa Mwangunga was repeatedly taken to task by legislators in Parliament when they expressed their concerns that things were not all well in the ministry.

During one House session two years ago the outspoken Same East MP, Anne Kilango said the country was being made poor because of some few individuals in the ministry who were plundering our natural heritage -- the national resources in collaboration with some greedy people outside the country.

Kilango wondered why the president was left to crisscross the world seeking for financial aid while ivory worth billions of dollars was being smuggled to Vietnam.

But all that came to no avail if the most daring of all scandals to hit the ministry &#8211; the live wildlife theft through KIA last November is any indication.

To show that Minister Maige has risen from his slumbers early last week, he announced beefing up of security at the country's exit points designed to foil illegal transportation of wild animals.

Speaking at the sidelines of the Fourth Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation meeting in Arusha last week, he said "&#8230;this time around we'll be very tough with all those behind this dangerous business of illegal transportation of animals." He also vowed to wipe out the entire syndicate of wildlife smugglers.

Tough words that cannot hurt a fly. A syndicate of smugglers who dare bring in a military plane of a foreign government and flying out with animal cargo is no ordinary syndicate made of henchmen from urban backyards.

No one can swallow that so easily, in the same manner people not believing that EPA was hatched and money ripped of by smalltime crooks. Tell that to the mountains.